Microsoft as a Service Company

This digital feedback loop is forcing Microsoft to remake itself. We have to get out of the "software business long-term" and get into the "software equals a service business long-term." The digital feedback loop transforms the way our product is delivered and that transformation will have a huge effect. Today we'll work for two years and introduce a new product. We get feedback for a year, work for another year, and then ship another product. The digital feedback loop means we literally can tune a product. We're getting continuous feedback, and we can continuously update and improve the product. The whole culture and psychology of that is quite different for us.
We need to provide our software as a service. A consumer or a small business will just register for that service. Will we have something that gives you spreadsheet capabilities, and word processing capabilities? As long as I work at Microsoft, absolutely. Will we have code that executes on your PC as long as I work at Microsoft, absolutely. But, if I could actually come to enterprise customers and say, we'll provide you the service, then they don't have to have people set it up, configure it, and worry about it.
The user can still personalize, but it's not being done in an unpredictable way, in a bunch of different IT shops. We take cost out for the IT guy. We take cost out for us, and we give a better customer experience. We don't stop being a product company. But, we have to be sure that we take on a service orientation during the next several years.
So can we deliver as much or more value with a service as we do with packaged software? We can deliver a ton more value, if we do it right. We can take care of customers and that's what our customers want from us.